OOC Info [OOC Thread] Moving with the Herd

[Tribal]

The thread ‘Laviku’s Plunder’ is for captured PCs only. Currently that list includes Kyo, Kaitanu, Amunet, and Pearl. A second thread (‘Glorg’s Howl’), will be put up later today for Shahar and Oliver.

You are all more than welcome to write a solo about how your PC was affected by the raid, slaughter, and capture of the Drykas. In these solos you can write your character helping with the fighting, experiencing a near miss, the loss of family, friends, or loved ones, and if you so desire, opt for finding your own campsite burnt to the ground with all your belongings gone. It’s your story, get creative but be realistic and keep it fun.

On the 61st day in the thread for Laviku’s Plunder everyone will be able to join in on the fighting and take down of the pirates and on the 62nd you can all design your own loot in another short solo (loot must be approved before hand by me. Think of something a pirate might have on him, this is your chance to design something fun and different. Send me a PM with your idea).

[Azmere]

YES!

Glad to have you back, boss.

[Tribal]

I'm going to do my best to catch up this week everyone, sorry I've gotten so behind, especially on Dravite. Tribal is priority, anyone I owe posts to on Drav, I promise I haven't forgotten you but I will be slower with them until some of the major events are done!

[Kaitanu]

Tribal- Kai wasn't going to be one of the ones captured. (I had been undecided on that, so maybe that was where the confusion originated.) Kai will be helping with the recovery of the kidnapped, though. Sorry if my indecision made it unclear. I just don't have the heart to make Kai go back to square one in his recovery from being a slave. Not at this point. Kai will definitely be affected, though, especially in regard to how Pearl's kidnapping affects the pavilion. He'll definitely be there to help take care of Garrison!

[Tribal]

Apologies. I will correct that now.

[Kaitanu]

No worries! I'm sure it was me not being clear. Let me know how this affects the Blackwater pavilion, and Drav in particular. I'm going to write up a little solo for Kai showing how this affects him. It's about time he started stepping up and being more responsible!

[Graham Whipmane]

Can you hear the Wedding Bells!? CAN YOU?

Here is the open thread for you all to join, should you wish!

And for any interested, this is the thread in which their vows and marriage are actually going to take place (just keep in mind it's a Closed thread). We thought it would be easier to keep the two parts seperate!

Yaaaay!

[Tribal]

Holding off posting to L's Plunder today because I have had interest from someone else wanting to join so instead I'm going to go work on the tracking article.

[Tribal]

Graders unite!

Before I went on holiday I got the grading thread down to 1 page, it's now back to three again. I'd really appreciate some help!

Cheers guys.

[Tribal]

Striders
versus
My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic
A long overdue post to clarify a few things that people STILL don't seem to understand.

It is very clear to me that not many people on this site understand horses and even less of them understand Striders or the Drykas Culture as a whole. In a way it makes me furious because I've spent a godly amount of my time talking about the Drykas, lecturing about them, talking about the web, describing it, working it into plots, etc. And yet, still, there is a huge gap in understanding. Yesterday, on a scale of one to ten in terms of rage - where ten is pretty much me in a full blown rage - I was peaking around fifteen to eighteen. I'm still a bit miffed today but I've calmed down enough to actually post this post. This is something everyone should understand who's Drykas or lives among the Drykas culture even as an outsider.

Cyphrus and its massive Web is like a closed system. Lhex hates it. Why? Because it takes souls out of his cycle and keeps them in a smaller more defined closed cycle. Normally when you die on Mizahar, you go before Lhex and are judged. Mysterious unspoken things happen and you can have any number of things happen. You become reincarnated, hang out as a ghost, rest, or who knows maybe he snacks on you like a hostess twinkie.

It's different for the Drykas. They cheat the system. A long time ago they developed webbing and a lot of mages have contributed to the web since its formation. Its probably the closest thing to a perfect artificial biodome for souls there is. Why? How? The Drykas are tied into the web when they bond to a strider. Once part of that web, they don't die normally. They die and instead of going before Lhex, they get sucked by those ties back into the web. It's like the huge lumbering mississippi river of souls and everyone is together having a party all the time. Its a huge resource of energy made up of the souls people and the essence of those people - their djed. When a Drykas wants to be born again, they have two choices... come forth as a human or come forth as a strider. Striders are special horses, fairly intelligent, but not sentient. They are tied into the web a lot like San Fransisco trolley cars are tied into their trolley lines and powered along through that fragile connection. That is why they can go incredibly fast across Cyphrus where there is web laid down. They tap and utilize the energy of that web to speed up.

Now there's a couple of ways to escape this system. First, a celestial god can steal you for their realm's playground... and you become an Eth to Leth or Syna in their realm. That leaves you with a past life as a Drykas but no current ties to the web unless you get retied to the web as an Eth. You can be stolen back by Lhex if you are careless (or die too far from the web). You can also be taken by Uldr or any number of creatures that want your soul and take it. I'm sure there's a couple of other ways too.

Getting into the system is harder. You can be born in the area through whatever reason and then eventually bond to a Strider and get tied to the web by a webber due to earning that right within the Drykas culture. The Drykas bring in outsiders, especially since storytellers routinely give them plagues, kidnappings, slavers, etc... and decimate their populations. So the Drykas steal people and bring them into the system. I'm talking humans though, especially women and children. If you were born on the Sea of Grass to a non-Drykas person, odds are you won't be Drykas, but if you grow up there, you have a high chance of bonding to a Strider because you have your whole childhood to prove yourself to the striders... especially if you aren't a predator.

But ultimately the striders decide. They are horses. Horses are prey animals. They don't trust easily and they aren't always approachable or warm. Drykas horses are even harder because life on the Sea of Grass is rough. Making them tough, suspicious, and iron willed. It's very very rare to find other breeds of horses in Cyphrus because for the most part they don't thrive like the Striders do. Normal horses can't outrun danger, predators, and even things like weather. There are Mele horses, but they are tough as well and sheltered because as fast as Striders are, they aren't as strong as Mele's and they can't simply pull the weight of the wagons the Drykas own that hold their pavilions and all their household goods. Needless to say though... when the Drykas are on the move and endangered the Mele are the first to fall after all the other random breeds out there, and the striders are the getaway vehicles. An ideal situation is a traveling camp that can be totally packed on striders, not pulled on wagons by Mele.

Striders recognize people who have been in the web or are tied to the web. They don't have any particular 'that's a good person' detector or get knowing vibes on a person's character. They only know your part of or have been part of the web. You feel like it. You buzz with it. The web has a taste of your own essence in it as well. That's the tradeoff.

Now... why am I pissed? People are using bonding with striders as a Deus Ex Machina. They deny it. They say its just rp. They say joining the Drykas was the right thing to do, etc. But the truth is... you are using a plot device to bypass a ton of potentially great rp in terms of being an outsider. Here's a refreshment on what a Deus Ex Machina is.

de·us ex ma·chi·na
ˌdāəs eks ˈmäkənə,ˌdāəs eks ˈmakənə/
noun
noun: deus ex machina

an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel..

Now... this is particularly infuriating to me when Kelvic predators do it. Why? THEY ARE PREDATORS. Horses wouldn't tolerate them near. Everything on the Sea of Grass tries to eat them. They could be conditioned to accept them over time, but that would take a lot of rp in the form of physical time and writing. It also puts the strider in danger of letting a real predator close enough to attack due to said conditioning.

IF you are Kelvic, part of you thinks like a predator. Horses are delicious. Foals even more so... juicy tender meat... easy pickings. Sure you are sentient, but if you are even a little hungry, malnourished, etc then this is a huge temptation. Horses know it. And whenever I read these threads, it's like these horses turn into friendly giddy little My Little Ponies who love EVERYONE and who practically crawl into the pocket of the said character and hang out there without a care in the world.

It's bad enough most Kelvics deny their nature, refuse to bond, or claim they aren't interested in a bondmate (mostly for ooc reasons). IF you don't want to rp the race, play something else!

Bullshit.

Horses aren't stupid. Yet people keep insisting on playing them as stupid. Kelvics have no reason to be tied to the web past or present and while they might want to join the Drykas culture, they should have picked Drykas as a beginning race. There are, truthfully, very few actual real Drykas in Endrykas when you start looking at the numbers. I really want this to stop. So I've made bonding to a strider as an outsider a HD Ticket situation. Sorry but I've seen too much of this and I want it to stop.